#will this bite me in the ass tomorrow? most definitely. however. we persevere

[reikunrei]

"i'll go to bed on time tonight" i lied lyingly

[queen-scribbles]

Such is Life

For the @pillarspromptsweekly Roll For It! I picked my elements this time around, so it’s Raedric, Edér, and... well, I couldn’t decide between ambition, knowledge, and promise, so they’re all sort of in there. You may have to squint.

It was raining when Charity woke up. This meant two things. First, it was probably a good bit later than she thought, given how dark the sky was. Second, depending on how long it had been raining, she and Edér might have to put their plans for the day on hold. Mud made sparring interesting, but only to point. Past that made it more of a challenge than she wanted.

She would have been perfectly happy laying in bed another hour, enjoying the sound of rain and not worrying about how much of the day she was “wasting”, but Sparrow decided she wanted breakfast now. It was hard to enjoy anything with an impatiently meowing calico walking on your chest. And head.

“Alright, al-oof-right, I’m comin’,” Charity sighed, pushing herself up to a sitting position as the cat hopped off her chest.

Mroaw. Sparrow sat on the pillow, tail flicking back and forth.

“What, no mice today? Or are you bein’ a little priss about the rain?” Charity stretched and looked over at the cat. Sparrow just blinked slowly at her. “I’m gonna take that as a yes to the second one. C’mon.”

She took her time preparing food for both of them. The rain had stopped, sun peeking through the clouds, by the time she finished eating.

That was promising. Charity cleaned up from breakfast and dressed quickly. Hopefully the rain had hit that sweet spot of lasting long enough to water everything for her without going so long the ground was completely saturated. The first couple steps out her door squished, water welling around the soles of her boots, and she grimaced. That proved to be premature, however, and further out from the house the ground was damp enough for her to leave footprints, but not so much to be slippery. All the sprouting vegetables and flowers alike had been thoroughly doused, so she’d only need to weed and check for bugs.

Thank Eothas I won’t hafta haul water today. That was getting old. The rain had, unfortunately, watered the weeds as well as the things she wanted growing, so there was more to pull than she expected to find today. Such is the life of a farmer, Charity thought wryly, and got to work.

~~~~~~

Three hours later, she’d made it through the vegetables without too much trouble and was starting on the flowers when Edér showed up.

“Now that should be a paintin’,” he teased, leaning against the fence as he watched her work.

Charity wrinkled her nose at him and huffed hair back toward the messy shambles of her bun. “I don’t really want my eternal bane immortalized like that.”

Edér grinned. “Aw, c’mon, Char, who in their right mind would focus on the weeds rather’n you?”

She chuckled, even as her face warmed. “Sweet talker. Thought you said you wouldn’t be by til noon. You had that trade commission meeting.”

“Darlin’.” Still grinning, he nodded toward the sky.

She followed the gesture to see the sun sitting high at its apex and scowled.  “Damn cloudy morning. Threw my sense of time all off.”

Edér laughed. “Me, too. I was almost late for the meetin’, which woulda been a shame.”

Charity shared the laugh as she pushed to her feet. “’Cause we both know how much you love that part of your job.”

He chuckled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck as if massaging out an ache. “They woulda just waited for me. Gotta have their neutral party so they can yell at each other an’ call it fair.” He grabbed her hand once she was close enough to the fence and pulled her in to steal a kiss. “Let’s have lunch. It’ll make my day better” --he smirked as her stomach rumbled--”and yours too, from the sound of it.”

“Fine, but you’re cooking.”

He laughed and wiped dirt off her cheek with his thumb. “Deal.”

~~~~~~~~~

“So, how’re things lookin’ closer to the heart of town?” Charity asked, tone casual, as they ate.

Edér shot her a knowing look. “Pretty wet, but not awful. Sparrin’ ring’s just muddy enough to be fun, if that’s what you’re wonderin’.”

“It was,” she said. A sheepish smile tugged at her lips. He knew her too damn well. “I’m lookin’ forward to another shot at kickin’ your ass.”

He laughed an playfully nudged her ribs with his elbow. “Figure if you keep tryin’ eventually you’ll succeed?”

“Exactly. Perseverance is one of those virtue things,” she joked. “I keep tryin’ it’ll pay off sooner or later.” Her playful smile morphed into a concerned frown when Edér rubbed the back of his neck again. “You alright? That’s about the eighth time you’ve done that an’ you ain’t even been here two hours.”

“Listenin’ to merchants bicker for an hour’ll make anyone tense,” he joked. “But we might wanna hold off on sparrin’ til tomorrow. To make it a fair fight.”

Charity swallowed the last bite of her lunch and nodded, smirking mischievously. “Sure. Wouldn’t want you havin’ any excuses when I whip your tail.” She set aside her dishes and beckoned him closer. “In the meantime, c’mere.”

Edér raised an eyebrow but complied, scooting closer and sitting with his back to her as she indicated. “Can I ask what you’re up to?”

She laughed as she settled her hands gently on his shoulders. “I may not be as good at them as you are, but you ain’t the only one who knows how to give a back rub. An’ you seem like you need it.”

“Can’t argue that,” he conceded, leaning back into her hands as she started massaging out the worst of the tension. “Gods, that feels good.”

Charity chuckled fondly, her thumbs rubbing the tight muscles between his shoulder blades. “How bad were these merchants?”

“Pretty... mmm.... pretty bad. Why can’t people get along?”

She laughed, hands working down his spine. “I ever find an answer to that one, I’ll let you know.”

“Great. I’ll use it as my secret weapon at meetings like this,” Edér said, amusement in his tone.

Charity didn’t make it too much further--a little over halfway down--before her thumb grazed over a ridge that was definitely not just a wrinkle in his shirt.  “Edér...” He tensed ever so slightly as she left off the backrub to slip her hand under his shirt and trace the scar from where she found it down to just above his hip. “What in the blue blazin’ Hel...”

“Goes the other way, too,” Edér commented with a dark chuckle. He tugged the collar of his shirt til she could see the other end of the scar; just below the top of the opposite shoulder blade.

She winced, mentally following the scar’s path. “Do I wanna know where it came from?”

This laugh was much lighter. “Goin’ away present from the fella in charge of Gilded Vale, Raedric. See, he’d started driftin’ toward being a paranoid-zealot type. Real suspicious of just about everyone, killin’  them for no real reason beyond not bein’ able to tell him what he wanted to hear. Right around when me an’ Aloth started travelin’ with Tavi someone asked her to kill him. Seeing how he treated his people--tree full of corpses don’t speak well of the man in charge--she agreed. So we sneak in, find him.” He snorted softly. “Thing about paranoid zealot types is they fight back real hard. And are very prepared. On our way in, we’d found that he murdered his wife for birthin’ a Hollowborn, saw it as proof she was a heretic, so Tavi was out for blood. I’m tryin’ to keep her from bein’ too reckless, keep Aloth from gettin’ overwhelmed, and, well....” he shrugged.  “Raedric moved fast for a man in full blazin’ plate. It ain’t really all that bad; just looks like shit ‘cause Tavi’s doctorin’ consists of ‘Stitch it up and pray’.”

“This is the man you got the ‘free land for new settlers’ idea from?” Charity frowned, staring hard at the part of the scar she could see. It was pretty ugly on the lower end, tapering off quickly as it approached his spine, then felt much thinner on the high end.

Edér shrugged. “Good idea’s a good idea. Even if it is the only decent thing the man did in the last decade.”

“And it really doesn’t hurt?” she murmured, brushing her fingers over the low end.

“Nope, promise.” Edér turned to wink at her over his shoulder. “It’s more ticklish’n anything.”

She grinned. “Really?�� She ran one finger along roughly the path of the scar, lazily zigzagging over it, and giggled when he flinched. “I’m gonna have to remember that.” She leaned forward, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Are you feelin’ better, though? Even if I didn’t get all the way through the backrub ‘fore I got distracted?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, it did helped. Most of the soreness was up top, so you got all of it.”

“Good. Feel like sparring, or should we still put it off?” she asked, sliding her hands around, still under his shirt, until she was hugging him.

“Let’s do it tomorrow. Gives the ground more time to dry out, an’ me more time to relax.” He rolled his shoulders to emphasize the point. “So it’s a fair fight.”

“I do like the sound of that,” Charity concurred. “Then whaddya want to do today instead?”

“You ain’t done weedin’ yet, right?” Edér asked, hands settling over hers.

“Right,” she said reluctantly. “Still gotta do the flowers.” She smirked, “Also, there’s a weddin’ the two of us really should be at least starting to plan...”

Edér shook his head. “Not on the same day as a trade commission meetin’. I’ll stick with the weeds, thanks. You want help?”

“Yeah, but won’t that make you sore again?” Charity pointed out.

“Maybe you’re real good at backrubs and that’s my plan,” he said teasingly.

“You’re just diabolical,” she teased right back, poking his stomach.

He laughed as he shied away from the poke. “Or maybe I just wanna spend time with you, since it’s been a few days, an’ if that means endin’ up a little sore, so be it.”

“Such a romantic,” Charity ribbed. “But if you’re serious, I will take you up on that. Sparrow’s not good for much b’sides company when it comes to weedin’, when she deigns to do even that much.” And she liked the idea of another pair of hands--especially his--making it go faster.

“I am,” Edér said, finally moving to slip free of her embrace. He pushed to his feet and offered her his hand. “Shall we?”

Charity grinned and took it. “I believe we shall.”